


and let the words fall out

by klainelynch



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Young Royai, it’s called self-care sweaty, reading as a love language, this is the entire point of the two cakes theory, yes I basically already wrote this fic with Sukka last summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-27 21:20:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30128991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klainelynch/pseuds/klainelynch
Summary: “Why are you out here?” Miss Hawkeye finally asked.“I’m reading,” Roy said, and gestured with his book. A smile crept up his face almost without his realizing it—see, nothing threatening here, just a boy and his book.“I can see that,” she said, “but why are youout here?”
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33





	and let the words fall out

No one had to tell Roy that being an apprentice would be the hardest thing he’d ever done. Alchemy came easily to him, but he had reached the end of his natural abilities by the time he was twelve, and there was no way he could advance without the help of a teacher. He was prepared to study for hours at a time, to struggle over new concepts, to memorize form after endless form until they became second nature to him.

He hadn’t been prepared to do it alone. 

Master Hawkeye was brilliant, there was no doubt about that, but Roy had finally realized that he wasn’t much of a teacher. It shouldn’t have taken six months to admit that to himself, but Roy wasn’t used to thinking about adults like that. They were supposed to take care of children, to help them along the way. Master Hawkeye just seemed to want to ensure that his life’s work hadn’t been in vain. And while Roy was grateful for the opportunity to learn _anything_ about alchemy, he wasn’t sure how he would ever get further in his studies if he had to keep teaching himself.

“Read this until you can explain it to me without looking,” he’d told Roy as he threw the tome at him. “And don’t come at me with any of your questions. Alchemists have to make and discover their own knowledge. You can’t rely on others out there in the world, so don’t expect anything else in here.”

“Yes, sir,” Roy said, even though he knew Master Hawkeye wasn’t listening to him any more. It used to sting, the way he would be given an assignment and then cut loose. 

[it didn’t hurt any more]

_[really]_

The book ended up being a more interesting read than he expected, so he made his way to a bridge over the closest stream. It was the perfect place to dangle his feet in the summer current as he read. At first glance, his supposed assignment was merely a collection of children’s tales from different cultures about the creation of the world. Roy recognized a few of the stories from his childhood library. He could vaguely remember his dad reading him the Xingese story of a goddess who pulled people out of the clay, giving them life so that she didn’t have to be alone any more. The first time Aunt Chris tried to read him the same story, he pushed her away and said it was stupid. 

[that wasn’t what he meant]

Roy’s face heated up at the memory, and he stopped reading for a minute so he could dribble some water over his head. Anyone who had to deal with him in those months after he lost his parents and still talked to him today was a special kind of person. If he had been Aunt Chris, he might have kicked him out of the house after all the grief he gave her.

Though the noon sun was warm on his dark hair, the water kept him cool, and the bugs weren’t as bad as he expected. Really, this should have been a pleasant day, but a tickle on the back of his neck kept poking at him, refusing to let him relax. This wasn’t like any other book that he had read in his studies. Those history texts and scientific articles had been difficult to read, but he’d understood their purpose right away. So why had Master Hawkeye assigned him this one? 

_As the circle began, so it ended, and none but those at the start knew how it would end._

He couldn’t explain why, but something about that sentence, nestled right in the heart of a Xerxes folk tale, refused to let go. Something started to click in his mind. It wasn’t the first time this story had referred to a circle, but it felt different here.

_[familiar]_

Roy nearly dropped the heavy book into the stream. This story wasn’t about the creation of the world at all, but the creation of the first transmutation circles. 

[and if that was the case—]

Flipping back to the previous story, he realized that the dancing in that story must have been a stand-in for the hand movements some versions of alchemy incorporated. He wasn’t sure what the blue imagery in the one before that was supposed to represent, but now it seemed too obvious to be anything other than some sort of metaphor that he could decode.

This was alchemy—being able to see what was and what might be, separate but together in the same moment.

If he wanted to read this book properly, he needed to start all over. Almost a hundred pages over. Sighing, he wasted no time in getting back to work. Now that he knew what he was looking for, it all seemed so obvious, but his progress slowed painfully. He pulled out his notebook and started taking notes on what he thought each of the symbols meant. Chapters that had taken minutes to read now took close to an hour. Master Hawkeye hadn’t told him how long he had to finish; he hoped he had at least a few days to work out all the symbolism. 

[don’t be a disappointment]

[be anything but that]

Roy was almost back to the point in the book when he had realized what was going on when he noticed that he wasn’t alone any more. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Miss Hawkeye standing just a few feet away, a fishing pole in her hand and a scowl on her face.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you needed to go fishing today,” he sputtered, vaguely aware that he was standing up and trying to look like he hadn’t just been caught doing something wrong. 

[he hadn’t though, so why was he acting like this?]

She stared at him for a long moment. In all the time Roy had spent in her house, he had only spoken to her a handful of times. Master Hawkeye kept him busy with his studies just like he kept her busy with all of the chores he either didn’t care to do or didn’t know needed doing.

“Why are you out here?” she finally asked.

“I’m reading,” he said, and gestured with his book. A smile crept up his face almost without his realizing it— _see, nothing threatening here, just a boy and his book_.

“I can see that,” she said, “but why are you _out here?_ ”

“I like to be outside,” he shrugged. “It’s been raining for the last week, and I can finally get out of the house.”

She winced, and Roy wanted to snatch the words back. He hadn’t meant to imply that Hawkeye Manor, her home, was a place to escape from. Even if it seemed like it might have been for her.

“Do you want me to scram? I can read anywhere, it’s really no trouble.”

“Don’t bother,” she sighed. “All of this conversation has probably scared away the fish. Guess it will be rabbits for dinner again.”

Roy felt his stomach churn just a little bit. Here he was, enjoying the sunshine with a book that was certainly work but felt more like fun than anything he’d done in months, and she was planning tonight’s dinner. 

Just like she had done for him every day since his arrival.

[it didn’t seem fair]

“You caught a lot of those yesterday, didn’t you?” he asked. She tilted her head, and he quickly continued. “What I mean is—do you need to catch more? Or do you want to stay out here for awhile?”

“What would we do out here?”

“I can read this to you,” he said, and flipped back to the beginning of the tome for the third time. It would mean that he wouldn’t finish the book any time soon, but that was okay with him if it meant he got to spend some time with Miss Hawkeye. He looked up again and was surprised to see that her expression had darkened.

“I _can_ read, you know,” she said in a small voice. “Just because I’m not an Alchemist doesn’t mean I’m illiterate.”

God, but he was a bonehead. Of course she would take his words that way, even if that wasn’t anything close to what he meant. Roy knew she took her lessons at the local school for half of the day. She was always home for lunch, and never returned for the afternoon sessions. There was too much she did around the house for that to happen.

“I never said you were! I just wanted to—no, it’s stupid.”

“What?”

He crouched down and ran his hand over the boards of the bridge. Crunching the twigs beneath his fingers gave him something to do, gave him an excuse not to look at her as he admitted, “I like reading out loud, and I haven’t gotten to in a long time. My sisters would always ask me to read to them, whatever books I’d grabbed from the library that week, and they always said I had a nice voice.” Stupid, why bring up his sisters? Miss Hawkeye wasn’t like his sisters for many reasons. “I’m sorry, I just thought you might want to take a break for a bit.”

Another long moment passed. Roy wondered if he’d said too much. The words didn’t seem like much of a confession, but he had a feeling that Miss Hawkeye could tell how much it had taken for him to speak those words.

[that should have scared him]

[it didn’t]

“No, it’s okay,” she said, and when he looked back up at her, the scowl was gone, and a very different sort of look had taken up residence on her face. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you read out loud. Do you read as loudly as you talk?”

It hadn’t taken Roy six months to figure out that her current look meant she was teasing him, and challenging him to tease her right back. 

“Well, I guess you’ll have to be the one to tell me.”

Miss Hawkeye didn’t say anything in return, but she did sit down next to him, almost close enough to touch, and that was better than any quip. Roy smiled at her for just a second longer before returning to the first chapter yet again.

For a supposed children’s story, there were a lot of big words, and it was easier to guess their pronunciations since he’d already read them twice. The last thing he wanted to do right now was stumble over his words. Aunt Chris used to make him read his vocabulary words out loud every morning before breakfast. At the time, he’d complained up a storm, but now he was grateful for the practice.

[he remembered her telling him to slow down, to stop rushing his words together]

[he tried]

[for Miss Hawkeye, he’d try anything]

Half of these pages were taken up by intricate drawings. She was sitting close enough to see them easily, though Roy wished he were bold enough to invite her closer under the pretense of letting her notice the details in each one. It hadn’t taken long for him to pick up on how the art styles changed as the story’s origin did. This first tale from Amestris had one of the simpler drawings, but someone had still taken the time to shade every swirl of night sky. 

But no matter the origin, all of the sentences in each story meandered terribly, and this one was no exception. Roy tried to use his cadence to help make the meaning more clear. It helped that he could see both stories that were being told. He couldn’t do the character voices very well, but that was okay. The real story was hidden in the narration, and that’s where Roy did his best work. Mindful of what Miss Hawkeye had said, he kept his volume steady but pitched his voice up and down to draw attention to certain points, always with that same rich tone that his sisters had praised.

A few times, he kept his finger on the sentence he was reading so that he could glance over at her. She had pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. Though her gaze stayed fixed at some point downstream, Roy could tell that she wasn’t bored by what she was hearing. She seemed to be deep in thought, and it didn’t take long for Roy’s suspicions to come true.

“It’s about alchemy,” she gasped as soon as he finished the fourth chapter. “All that stuff about the waters over the land and the rings of light creating the world anew—it’s just talking about my father’s research.”

“Yeah, that’s what I think too,” he said. “Geez, you got that way faster than me.”

She shrugged and pulled her arms away from her knees, leaving one hand just a breath away from his. “You didn’t have someone making it easier to understand with the way he read it.”

He looked at her just as she turned her head away, but he still caught the blush across her face.

“You have a nice voice, Roy,” she murmured, and the sun was no longer in the sky, but in his chest, desperate to make its way out.

“Thanks, Riza.”

[her name on his lips

the swell of pride when he recognized the book’s riddle]

_[should it have surprised him how similar the two sensations were?]_

They both seemed to notice the hour at the same time. It wasn’t late, but it would be before long.

“We should get back to the house before night falls. My dad won’t notice if dinner’s late, but he still needs to eat something.”

And just like that, things went back to how they always were with Miss Hawkeye. He stayed a few feet behind her as they followed the path back, partially to make sure he didn’t step on her heel, but also because her usual air of isolation was back. They were walking the same way, but they weren’t walking together. Up until an hour ago, they hadn’t ever done _anything_ together.

“Mr. Mustang?” she asked, and his heart sank again at hearing the usual title. The house was now in sight, which seemed to lock everything back into place. “If you want to keep reading that book tomorrow, around the same time, I wouldn’t mind that.”

She still hadn’t looked back at him, but her voice was as warm as it had been when she’d complimented his reading, and that was enough of an opening for him. The tome in his arms lightened just a little bit. On the surface, nothing had changed. He was here in the country to learn alchemy with Hawkeye; maybe the universe had a funny idea about which Hawkeye that was.

[maybe Roy wouldn’t have to do this alone]

“That sounds just fine to me, Miss Hawkeye.”

**Author's Note:**

> Am I projecting through Roy when it comes to his strengths and weaknesses in reading aloud? maybe so.gif  
> 
> 
> The Xingese myth was inspired by the Chinese myth of [Nüwa](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N%C3%BCwa). The other myths are my own creation, though vaguely inspired by Tolkien’s creation myth in _The Silmarillion_.  
> 
> 
> Title is a lyric from “Brave” by Sara Bareilles
> 
> Find me on tumblr at [klainelynch](https://klainelynch.tumblr.com/)


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